WoT series gets greenlight from Amazon

I thought that Mat would have more surprises to bring to bear in the battle, particularly towards the end - I was hoping for yet another trick up the sleeve that didn't turn up. Mat didn't seem to have quite the same level of strategy and battle knowledge he showed in other books - although, quite annoyingly, his fellow characters seemed to mention his tactical brilliance with every second breath.

I wasn't mad about the Compulsion used on the great generals - surely they would be protected given that Tel'aran'rhiod is busier than a train station these days, and that we know about dream protection since Moiraine mentioned it all the way back when we started in book #1.

It sounds like they had a lot of folks calling in sick when it actually came to Tarmon Gai'don. Where were the 2000-4000 Aiel channellers, the 1000+ Aes Sedai, the 1000+ Kin, and the thousands of Wind Finders? I expected massive circles of channellers wielding sa'angreal capable of killing the anticipated millions of Trollocs. Two hundred or more Black Ajah and a thousand Asha'man, many turned.

The impression I got was of 20-30 Aes Sedai facing the enemy alongside Egwene. The location of thousands, if not tens of thousands of channellers is not something that we should be wondering about. What about the Green - the "Battle Ajah"? They escape mention at the Fields of Merrilor - were they off drinking tea and discussing braid tugging techniques because someone forgot to invite them to the Last Battle? I don't think so.

We had loads of awesome uses of the power in Dumai's Wells - dome, exploding ground, headsplosions, etc - and at the manor house - death gates and all that. Where were these in the Last Battle?

We know that only a 'remnant of a remnant' of the Aiel will survive, surely that means that several hundred thousand of them die in the Last Battle. Yet we get the impression of hundreds, perhaps in the low thousands, of Aiel moving around and fighting during the battle. Do they even get orders from Mat? I don't think so - please correct me if I'm missing something.

Aside: I didn't like how the Aviendha's visions of the Aiel future seemed to be just written off. It felt like an editorial decision where either resolving this storyline would take too many pages -and requiring another book - or simply that the writing team felt that the deus ex machina resolution would satisfy readers.

Logain, Morgase and Padan Fain were massively built up in early books as important characters with important roles. Logain was utterly disappointing to the point of arguably proving Min's visions incorrect - which they should never be. The Morgase and Fain cameos were slightly better in that the didn't deserve more than a couple of lines. Many other cameo appearances felt like just that - name drops rather than real important roles.

Surely we could have got some preview of Shara's importance and role, rather than simply dropping them in for what seems like plot convenience. Jain Farstrider or Forsaken scenes could have given some more hints in earlier books.

Speaking of plot convenience, the "plot armor" was particularly strong for major characters in the Last Battle - far more of them should have died. For the sake of anyone reading this accidentally, I won't mention names, but I felt they got off particularly lightly. And as for poor Bela - cruel, guys, cruel!

We now know how Rand survives, taking over another body. This was a decision made by Jordan years ago but despite the hints that the two were connected, it does seem just a little bit too easy.

I agree with those who compare it to a Gemmell-style rushed ending - the battle is still going and you're wondering how the book could possible end in a couple more pages. I think Jordan's prescribed epilogue is a strong factor in this - if Sanderson had some leeway to add to the epilogue I think that would have significantly helped.